


The One You Feed

by slightly_ajar



Series: Nowhere to go but everywhere [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e23 MacGyver + MacGyver, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Jack is wise, Panic Attack, Post Season 2 Finale, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 13:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: Jack could hear breathing over the connection, stuttering inhales that sounded as if Mac was attempting, and failing, to control them.He straightened his spine, drawing up to attention, his Spidey sense on high alert. “Mac, is that you?”What happened after Mac finally found his father and the answers to his questions about his dad's fifteen year absence from his life, answers that led to him walking away from the Phoenix without looking back.





	The One You Feed

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta-ed. I've proof read it but if you notice any spelling mistakes that I've missed or random words that have been left behind when I've moved a paragraph around again and again and again please let me know.
> 
>  
> 
> If you would like to come and say hello on Tumblr I’m there as [Sky-larking](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sky-larking)

Jack’s GTO was parked in his spot. It wasn’t technically his spot, he didn’t have his name on a plaque in front of the space like Matty did. The little white sign guarding the parking space next to the entrance read ‘Matilda Webber, Director’. If Jack did ever get his own plaque he thought it should say ‘Jack Dalton, Agent,’ or ‘Jack Dalton, Badass’ or simply ‘If you park here Jack Dalton will shoot you’. 

Despite the lack of a sign staking his claim everyone knew that the parking space was his. It kept his car shaded from the midday sun, out of the line of fire from bird poop and it was a quick stroll to the building’s entrance. Sometimes visitors to the Phoenix who didn’t know the unwritten rule about Jack’s own personal section of the parking lot would leave their cars there. Finding a strange car in his space was never a good omen. Fake Doctor Zito's car was a prime example. At first Jack had chalked up the loss of his preferred parking place to a visiting expert as being another one of Cairo Day’s misfortunes but later he was sure it was more than that, it had been a portent of bad tidings. 

He had used his own space that morning with no inkling of how the day would go. Which just goes to show that signs and portents don’t work all the time. 

He’d parked with no notion that the following hours would bring Mac’s resignation from the Phoenix and his father’s reappearance, the revelation that the elder MacGyver had shared the same building as them the whole time, awkward conversations on horseback and Jack watching Mac walk out of the door of the Phoenix for the last time, the muscles in his shoulders tight with tension. 

It was a shame, Jack mused, that Mac’s dad didn’t have a designated spot for his car. A sign next to Matty’s that read ‘James MacGyver, Oversight and Absent Father’ would have saved them all a lot of trouble and heartache. 

Jack climbed into his car and sat back, his arms outstretched, his wrists resting on the steering wheel and his hands dangling. He didn’t pull out his keys and turn them in the ignition because when he drove away from the Phoenix that would mean the day had ended and it would be the start of whatever was going to happen next. And Jack didn’t know that that would be. Whatever it was would not be him and Mac working together on a mission with both of them playing their parts, Mac bringing the smarts and him bringing the muscle. He had thought that they’d would do that together until Jack decided to retire, barring any and all accidents and explosions, and now…Jack didn’t know. 

He didn’t like not knowing. 

He didn’t like any of this. 

Jack gave in to the urge to growl out the frustration that burned heavily behind his ribs, pushing back against the steering wheel with the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching as he let out a wordless snarl. His phone rang in his pocket, drawing him out of his aggravation, with Mac’s name showing in the display. 

“Mac?” 

Jack could hear breathing over the connection, stuttering inhales that sounded as if Mac was attempting, and failing, to control them. 

He straightened his spine, drawing up to attention, his Spidey sense on high alert. “Mac, is that you?” 

“I’m... it’s wasn’t-”

“Mac, are you okay, bud?” 

“None of it was real, Jack.” He sounded wrecked, worse than he had when he’d called Jack from a stranger’s cell phone after escaping a psychopath and crawling from a sewer. He’d been confused and shaken during that call but Jack had heard relief in his voice, Mac had known that he was safe despite his disorientation. All Jack could hear in Mac’s voice now was distress. 

“Are you hurt? What’s happening?” 

“He wasn’t here so I built a life of my own but it was all lies. Manipulation and lies.” Mac rambled with a heated urgency that verged on panic. “He arranged you, Thornton and DXS and the Phoenix. Nikki! Do you think he knew about Nikki?” 

“Woah, slow down there, Mac. Just hang on. Are we talking about your dad here? You have built your own life and he didn’t arrange me. No one could ever arrange me. He just happens to be the one who organised the paperwork that assigned me as your Overwatch in the sandbox, that’s all.” 

“It’s all been lies. For years.” 

“Not everything has been a lie, bro,” Jack softened his words into calm, soothing tones, “Bozer hasn’t lied to you and neither has Riley. And neither have I, come on, you know you can tell when I’m lying.” 

It sounded like Mac couldn’t catch his breath, Jack could hear each one hitching in his chest. “I don’t know what’s real.” His voice was unsteady, Jack’s reassurances having made no impact. 

“Mac.” 

“None of it is real, Jack. I’ve been wrong about everything. If the things I thought about myself aren’t true then who I am?” Mac’s next inhale was strained, a gasp that didn’t sound as though it would draw enough air into his lungs. “He was here the whole time, he hadn’t really left he just didn’t…I don’t know what…” Another laboured breath, “I can’t, Jack.” 

“Aw, buddy.” After years of experience with frightened civilians caught up in conflict situations and veterans after the conflict had ended but the scars of nightmares and flashbacks had yet to fade, Jack recognised what was happening to his partner. “Mac, you need to listen to me, are you listening?” He’d been with friends and comrades when they’d had panic attacks and had experience a few dark nights of the soul himself, and he knew a technique that should be able to help Mac out of the spiral he’d become caught in. 

“Harry knew where my dad was. He lied, and if Harry lied then nothing is what I thought it was. I don’t know what to trust. It’s like the ground isn’t solid anymore.” Mac’s voice faded to a rasp, “Everything’s unstable and I can’t breathe through it. I’m so _angry_ , Jack. Angry and empty and…I can't breathe.” The sentence ended with a wheeze that could have been the harsh edge of a sob. 

Jack closed his eyes to block out his car, the Phoenix building and what was now an unsalvageable hot mess of a day and focused entirely on Mac. “Mac, I need you to listen to me okay? Just listen to me, you don’t have to think about anything else but my words.” He could hear Mac’s quick and overwrought breathing in his phone’s speaker. “I want you to reach out with the hand that isn’t holding your phone and touch something, it doesn’t matter what it is, it could be the wall next to you or the fabric of your jeans, I want you to concentrate on what you can feel underneath your fingers.” Jack listened, waiting. 

“I…”

“Is it rough, smooth, warm, cold, soft? You can tell me about it if you want but you don’t have to. ” 

"What? Why?" 

"Trust me, this will help." 

A ragged gasp, pained and frightened. 

"I can't." 

"You can do this, brother. I know you can, just focus." 

“Smooth. Dry.” The clumsily formed words came slowly. 

“That’s it, well done. Anything else, really focus on the sensations, just think about what you can feel with your hand and nothing else. Pour that big brain of yours into your fingertips.” 

“Wooden. Level,” Mac’s voice again, quiet and tentative, “Flat. Cool. Hard.” 

“Good boy, now, what you can hear?” Mac’s stuttering breathing seemed to be settling, the inhalations Jack heard were smoother and easier. 

“Birds. Leaves,” Mac coughed, losing a little of the control of his voice that he had gained which trembled on the next word, “Wind.” 

“Take your time. You can do this, I know you can, there’s no rush. Anything else?” 

“Dog. Traffic.” He sounded steadier again, the shaking cadence was fading from his voice. Jack had hoped that Mac focusing on his senses would give his overactive mind the space to out of the anxious trap it had become snared inside and to Jack’s relief it seemed to be working. “Airplane. You.” 

“That’s it, now this one might be a little trickier, what can you smell?” Jack could imagine Mac closing his eyes and wrinkling up his nose as he tried to identify the scents he was aware of. 

“Ash. Grilled meat. Flowers. LA.” 

“Ah yes, the sweet, sweet smell of Los Angeles.” 

Mac sound calmer, calm enough that Jack could tell that he was no longer fighting for each breath. Calm enough for Jack’s worry for him decrease to the point where he was able to focus on things other than Mac’s panicked inhalations and become absolutely furious with himself. He cursed himself for not realising earlier what the events of the past day would do to his partner. The rug had been spectacularly pulled from under Mac with all the things that he had been sure of, that his grandfather didn’t know where his dad was, that his father was hidden somewhere off the grid, and that he made his own choices and followed his own heart in the way he’d lived his life, had been contradicted and turned inside out. That would be enough to unbalance anyone for someone like Mac, who dissected and overthought everything, it must have cut a devastating swathe through the foundations of what he believed to be true. 

“Mac?” 

“Better. Thank you. Sorry.” The fragility in Mac’s voice told Jack that though his panic had eased he was still brittle and hurting. 

“No need to apologise,” Jack swapped his phone into his other hand and relaxed a little, sinking lower into his seat now. “You okay?” 

A long silence followed. One Jack would normally fill with a joke, a movie reference or a comment to get Mac riled up, but he let the emptiness grow, giving Mac space to find the words he wanted. 

“I don’t think so. No, I don’t think I am.” 

Jack knew what it must have cost his friend to admit that, how deeply shaken he would have to feel to accept and confess that he was struggling and not respond with a dismissive ‘I’m fine, Jack,’ followed by a shrug, a smile and a change of subject. Jack immediately reached out to start his car and drive over to Mac’s house at attempt to _fix this_ but he reconsidered as his fingers brushed the warm metal of his car keys. What Mac was going through wasn’t the kind of thing that could be solved with a couple of beers and a conversation that searched out the silver lining. As much as it pained Jack, and God it pained him, maybe this was something that Mac needed to work through without Jack’s helicopter parenting buzzing around him. 

“What do you think you need?” 

Another silence, this one laden with the weight of the words Mac wanted to use and his uncertainty at how they would be received. “To go away. From here.” Mac’s voice was quiet but certain. “Not forever, maybe not for long,” he added quickly, contrite, “but it’s just too much here right now, I need to go somewhere quieter, where I can think. Jack, I -”

“I get it man, I do.” Sighing, hating what he was going to suggest but knowing it was probably for the best, Jack continued. “Okay, I have a story for you, you’re going to have to bear with me here because I do have a point and you are just going to have to be patient about me getting to it. “ Jack huffed, “The story is about two wolves and I think it will help you to hear it and the fact that it has featured in a Disney film does not affect its validity, by the way.” 

“Okay.” Mac drew the word out, being patient but not understanding why. 

“So, there are two wolves. One of them is angry. He’s arrogant, guilty, envious, resentful and an all-round pain in the ass. The other wolf is loving, hopeful, kind, calm and a way pleasanter brunch companion. Are you with me?” 

“So far? Yes.” 

“Now,” Jack cleared his throat for dramatic emphasis, “the important question that we have to ask ourselves about these two hairy howlers is, which one is the strongest?” 

“Is one of them the pack’s alpha, because that one would get first choice of the most nutritious parts of any kill so -”

“You are missing the point, bro. It’s the one you feed. The strongest wolf is the one you feed.” Jack tipped his head back and scratched at the scruff covering his jaw, “I don’t know, man, maybe you need to go away for a while to figure out which wolf you’re feeding and how to tell the difference between the two.” 

Jack’s car was one of only a handful of those left in the Phoenix parking lot. The others belonged to the techs running twenty four hour observations that had drawn the short straw and been given the night shift. He must have looked strange, sitting alone in his car in an almost empty car park. It felt fitting though, as much as Jack felt sure he was giving Mac the right advice he wasn’t certain that if they were together he would be able to tell Mac that he should go and that it would do him good travel for a while, see new places and meet new people without a dangerous plot to foil or international terrorist to stop. If they were sitting side by side in Mac’s house where Mac was safe and could be easily located through a door for which Jack had a key he wondered if he would want to tell Mac to walk away, even for a short time. Distance helped him see the truth, just like it might help Mac find some peace. 

“The one you feed.” Mac said, testing out the phrase. “Do you think searching for my dad has been me feeding the wrong wolf?” 

“Looking for him? No. What happens now? I don’t know, that’s up to you.” 

“Yeah,” Mac let out a slow breath, Jack could hear exhaustion behind the sound. And something else that could have been resignation, or perhaps understanding, “I’m going to go. Away. For a while. Until…”

“Until you are ready to come back.” Being honest with his friend shouldn’t hurt. Helping a person that he loved shouldn’t hurt him but Jack ached. He had never hated being right before. If this is what Riley meant when she talked about emotional intelligence then it sucked and he would prefer to be an emotional dumbass. He would probably sleep better. 

“Could you explain everything to Bozer? Tell him not to worry about the rent, I’ll take care of everything.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to everyone, they’ll understand.” 

“Jack, I’m going to pack some things and go. I need to go now.” 

“I get it, man. If your gut is telling you to leave now then that’s what you should do. Why wait if won’t feel any different in four, eight or twenty four hours?” Jack knew all about listening to his gut and if Mac’s was telling him that he needed to leave straight away then there was no reason to delay. “Look, before you go and start shoving clothes in a suitcase, I know this is a Jack Dalton sanctioned road trip, but it comes with a cravat.” 

“Caveat.” 

“I hope you have a good time and do a bunch of things that kids are supposed to do but you missed out on because you were a big dork at college, but I’ll need to know that you’re okay. I don’t need you to send me your GPS coordinates three times a week, as much as I’d like that, but I am going to need to know that you’re alright.” Jack was willing to let Mac leave on a road trip, he understood that was what his friend needed, but that didn’t mean he was wanted to let Mac _go_. He wasn’t going to be able to ignore his protective instincts, they had been focused on keeping Mac safe for too long to be put on hold while he went backpacking. “Send me a postcard from wherever you are, or a telegram, you could even put an advert in the personal section of the newspaper like in that Madonna movie but I need to hear from you somehow.” Jack switched his voice to his insistent tone, the one that Mac should know better that to ignore. “If I don’t I’ll assume there’s been some kind of misadventure and I’ll come to your last known location with a chopper and a full Tac team.” 

“I will, I promise. I’m sorry,” Guilt put cracks in Mac’s voice as he stumbled to express remorse for slights no one would accuse him of but himself, “it’s nothing personal, please tell the others, I just need to go somewhere with a bigger sky for a while, you know?” 

“I understand, stop apologising, man. Riley and Bozer will understand too. And so will Matty but she’ll be salty about it because that’s how she is. Go, be careful, but not too careful, sow some wild oats or whatever it is that kids call it these days, look up at a big sky and feel better.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

Jack harrumphed. What was he going to do next? That question was the one that he had been brooding on when Mac called. The one that had left him angry, worried and roaring in frustration. If he wasn’t going to be Mac’s partner, his bodyguard and the Han to his Luke then what was he going to be? 

“I don’t know yet. I think I have a couple of wolves of my own to wrangle.” 

“Be careful. I’ll see you soon. Jack, I...” Mac’ trailed off and Jack knew he was raking his fingers through his hair, angry with himself, at his inability to say the things that really mattered when he felt he needed to. Jack didn’t want Mac to tie himself up in knots over somethings as small but as potent as an ‘I love you’. He didn’t want Mac to feel like he had to force out a declaration to safeguard Jack’s affection. Of course Jack wouldn’t be angry with Mac, of course he wouldn’t be grow resentful and distant because Mac was doing what he needed to do to care for himself. Mac didn’t need to defend himself or prove anything, Jack’s friendship was unconditional and unwavering. 

“It’s all good, man, we’re good.” 

“Thanks. Thank you.” 

Mac inhaled in a rush of air then held his breath. Jack waited, letting Mac make the next move, knowing that he needed to be the one to break the connection. Then a huff gusted through the phone’s speaker and Mac hung up. 

Jack started his car and drove out of the parking lot. He didn’t go to Mac’s house and he didn’t go home. He drove without paying attention to where he was going, with the car’s windows rolled down so the wind could whip around him and the radio playing a little too loud, until he found himself at the beach. He parked as close to the shore as he could, his tires rolling over the small banks of sand that the wind had formed on the asphalt. Climbing out of the car to sit on the hood, he watched the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing as the tide pulled it away from the land. While he didn’t need a journey to find a huge, empty sky his spirit would definitely welcome a little soothing and spending time with the sea was always good for the soul, it was plenty big and blue enough for his needs. 

He watched the ocean ebb and flow as he thought about road trips and rediscovery and wolves. 

**Author's Note:**

> Like Jack, I had heard the story of the two wolves before I saw the Disney movie he mentions, which is Tomorrowland. I really enjoyed that film, I don’t understand why is wasn’t more successful. 
> 
> The Madonna movie Jack references is Desperately Seeking Susan which is a film that manages to actually be good despite featuring Madonna (sorry Madonna, but I’ve seen Shanghai Surprise, we both know what you’ve done). I haven’t seen Desperately Seeking Susan for years and since it was made in the 80’s it probably looks hilariously dated, I seem to remember that the fashion choices were a little bit out there at the time so goodness knows what they look like now. It’s worth a look though, it’s lots of fun and it features a young, dashing looking Aiden Quinn.


End file.
